The Brief

Poutine is sadly not a common dish at the diners and burger joints of greater L.A. If you’re unfamiliar with this touchstone of Quebecois cuisine, the basic formula is a plate of french fries, chunky cheese curds and a thin brown gravy.

The gravy should be hot enough to melt the curds so you get a gooey pull of cheese with every forkful of fry. Like the chili fries of L.A.’s classic burger stands, Poutine is best enjoyed by fork. Also, like chili fries, this messy dish can be an indulgent side to a burger or a meal in itself.

A popular Quebec dish called Poutine, consisting of french fries, cheddar cheese and gravy.

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David Boily

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AFP via Getty Images

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Since originating at diners in rural Quebec in the 1950s, poutine is now common throughout Canada. Menus at many poutineries often include embellished versions, supplemented with toppings or transformed by subbing the gravy for another rich, heavy sauce.

(Montreal’s Au Pied de Cochon, an icon of Quebecois cuisine, famously serves a foie gras poutine that melts in your mouth and travels directly to your arteries.)

Attending college in Montreal in the early 2000s, I probably had it once a week, sometimes as post-bar drunk food, but often as a part of a bigger lunch or dinner (RIP to my early 20s metabolism).

Every burger place, kabob shop, deli, diner and pizzeria had at least a simple version of poutine. Even Canada’s McDonalds has a poutine that’s hard to resist. “Do you want to upgrade your fries to a Poutine?” [think about it for a 10th of a second] “Yes. Yes, I do!”

For years, when people asked me if there was poutine in L.A., I would point them to Jay’s Bar, a comforting strip-mall gastropub in Silver Lake that nailed the main three elements of the dish. But when a friend recently texted me the same question, I realized that Jay’s menu had switched to Japanese bar food.

So where else to go? To find out, I've bounced from Santa Clarita to Long Beach, assessing the viscosity of various gravies, testing the elasticity of melted curds, and determining which restaurants make the most delicious poutines in the region.

Here’s what I found:

The Kroft (Anaheim, Chinatown, Long Beach)

The braised beef poutine from The Kroft in Chinatown.

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Henry Goldman

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Walking into the Kroft’s Chinatown outpost, nestled into one of the new apartment buildings at the Chinatown Gateway Monument, I was slightly skeptical. The counter-service restaurant, with outposts in L.A., Long Beach and Anaheim, had a sign in their window that announced they serve poutine. But then, in parentheses, the sign described poutine as “loaded fries.”

Now, it’s true that poutine is similar to loaded fries — I would contend they might even be culinary cousins. But this description negates poutine’s identity as a category unto itself. It would be like a sign describing nachos as “chips and dip.” It undermines the dish’s power.

However, once I took in the plethora of authentic-looking poutines on the menu, I relaxed a bit. Even though they sell burgers, this place could qualify as a poutinerie, a restaurant that makes poutine the star of their menu. In addition to a basic poutine, they serve some very appetizing variations, like a loco moco poutine with wagyu beef and fried eggs. And a country fried chicken poutine, which adds chicken nuggets and swaps out the brown gravy for a country sausage gravy.

I was blown away by the braised beef poutine, which, in addition to brown gravy, curds and fries, adds pickled red onions, sautéed mushrooms and the titular braised beef to make an oozy carb bomb. The double-fried french fries are crisp enough to not immediately turn soupy when hit with the gravy, but the gravy is not so hot that it scalds your mouth. It is also rich, complex, and the braised beef blends perfectly with the overall dish. A strong contender.

Sideburns, Long Beach 

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Henry Goldman

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During the pandemic, The Stache Bar, the platonic ideal of a neighborhood dive located near downtown Long Beach, opened up Sideburns in the space next door. It’s a humble counter-service burger joint, with a menu that lends itself to food that works well before the bar, after the bar and during the bar.

Sideburns has a lot of mouthwatering offerings, including a classic poutine. (They also have a “poutine burger,” which is exactly what it sounds like, a burger with poutine on it, which I will have to try for another article).

We initially ordered in the restaurant, but realized we could eat at the bar, so made the trek next door to eat our food with a cold beer. Nothing makes me feel quite like a grown-up then walking into a dark dive on an excessively bright day.

After a short wait, the bartender dropped a tremendous classic poutine on the bar. Size-wise, it’s closer to a side poutine than a meal. I suspect that's because if the bar was serving full plates of poutine, they would immediately put their customers to sleep. The poutine itself hits all the important notes: a brown gravy that lingers on the tongue, thick curds that melt nicely, and crisp, kennebec fries. After cleaning the paper tray the poutine came in, I was envious of the locals who get to call this lovely dive their neighborhood watering hole.

Wavy Gravy, Highland Park  

Poutine from Wavy Gravy in Highland Park.

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Henry Goldman

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A newish, gravy-forward restaurant in Highland Park, Wavy Gravy has enough varieties of poutine on the menu that it could reasonably be called a poutinerie — if that term meant anything to Southern California restaurant-goers.

However, they also serve plenty of burgers, sandwiches and all-day breakfast items, so their framing as a “diner” also fits. The counter service restaurant on York has a retro aesthetic, a comfortable vibe and I suspect some Canadian roots. There was a stack of Nanaimo bars (a chocolatey cookie bar originally from British Columbia), in a display case next to a small Canadian flag. They also know their poutine.

Of the L.A. County poutines I tried, I think Wavy Gravy has my favorite gravy, which is a happy development for a restaurant with “gravy” in its name. It was rich and decadent and was also the perfect temperature to melt the square-ish curds on the poutine. The fries were also perfectly fried — initially crispy but soft enough inside to melt in your mouth a few moments after biting into them.

After trying the basic poutine, I came back for their taco poutine with grilled chicken. I was curious to discover how it incorporated Mexican flavors into this decidedly Quebecois dish. The answer? Not very well. Nonetheless, the poutine was delicious, but it would have been better called a “marinated chicken poutine” rather than a “taco poutine”. That’s all to say, I still heartily recommend Wavy Gravy as one of the finest purveyors of poutine I’ve found in Southern California. I look forward to returning and trying more of the varieties on the menu.

I’m definitely hoping that these and other restaurants will create a new generation of poutine aficionados in and around L.A., and will push chefs to try new iterations on a classic dish. But even if it remains niche and only on a few menus, I'll still return to these recommended spots, hoping for that perfect, gravy-soaked cheese-pull.

Lines stretched around the block Sunday at the Original Saugus Cafe in Santa Clarita. It was supposed to be the restaurant's last day before closing after 139 years — making it the oldest continually operated restaurant in Los Angeles County.

But earlier this week, a sign was posted on the door saying, "Reopening under new ownership soon," although there were few details about who would be running it.

The sign was a surprise to the Mercado family, who have operated the restaurant for nearly 30 years. The family now is in a legal dispute with the Arklin family, who owns the property, about the potential re-opening and who owns the historic name.

The background

Alfredo Mercado worked his way up from bartender to restaurateur, purchasing the business in 1998. Since then Mercado and his daughters have operated the restaurant, leasing from the Arklin family. For most of that time, according to the Mercado side, the two families maintained good terms. Property owner Hank Arklin Sr., a former state assemblyman who owned other properties in the area, kept a verbal month-to-month agreement with the Mercados — no written lease required.

That changed when Arklin died in August at age 97.

New terms, failed negotiations

Larry Goodman, who manages multiple properties for the Arklin family's company, North Valley Construction, took over the landlord relationship. In September, the Mercado family say they were presented with a new written month-to-month lease.

Yecenia Ponce, Alfredo's daughter, said the new terms included various changes to the existing agreement, including a rent increase and charges for equipment.

Months of back and forth negotiations about different options, including selling the business, ultimately fell apart. Their attorney, Steffanie Stelnick, says they are being forced out, without proper legal notice, and has sent a cease-and-desist letter to Goodman saying the family has plans to continue running the business.

LAist reached out to Goodman for comment repeatedly Wednesday and Thursday by phone but did not hear back.

Goodman told The Signal, a Santa Clarita valley news outlet, that Alfredo Mercado had changed his mind several times in recent weeks about keeping the business.

“I said, ‘Fine,’ then I got out and got someone to take it over,” Goodman said.

He said he'd been in contact with Eduardo Reyna, the CEO of Dario's, a local Santa Clarita restaurant, and that the cafe could re-open as soon as Jan. 16.

Who owns what?

The dispute also focuses on who owns the rights to the Original Saugus Cafe name.

Ponce said when her father purchased the restaurant in 1998, it was called The Olde Saugus Cafe, but the name was then changed to The Original Saugus Cafe. State records show that name registered as an LLC under Alfredo Mercado.

After Arklin’s death, however, the Arklin family filed a pending trademark application to lay its own claim to the name.

The Mercado family is resisting.

"As long as they don't buy the name from us, we're not handing it over," Ponce said.

Ponce said the family had no idea the landlord planned to continue operations.

"We truly did think we were closing," she said. "We were not aware that they had plans to continue."

She apologized to customers for the confusion.

Whether the decades-old restaurant name survives — and under whose control — may ultimately be decided in court.

Community leaders and politicians in Los Angeles are responding in outrage after an ICE agent shot and killed a woman in Minnesota on Wednesday.

The fatal ICE shooting of 37-year-old Renee Good has sparked anger and fear in Los Angeles, which has been an epicenter of federal immigration enforcement since the summer.

Jorge-Mario Cabrera with the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, or CHIRLA, says the killing was upsetting but not surprising.

" Los Angeles has been witness of the escalating aggressiveness of these federal agents against the community," he told LAist.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has defended the shooting, saying Good was trying to run agents over with her car. That account has been disputed by eyewitnesses, the mayor of Minneapolis and other officials. Bystander video also challenges the federal narrative, according to MPR News.

L.A. politicians have joined a chorus demanding justice for Good. Mayor Karen Bass posted on X, saying that ICE agents are waging "a purposeful campaign of fear and intimidation" on American cities.

"The senseless killing of an innocent and unarmed wife and mother by ICE agents today in Minneapolis is shocking and tragic and should never have occurred," she said in the post.

L.A. County Supervisor Janice Hahn called on Noem to withdraw ICE from U.S. cities.

“These ICE agents are undertrained and trigger happy and everyone who has seen this video knows ICE murdered this woman,” she said in a statement.

Some protesters also gathered outside the federal building in downtown L.A. Thursday morning to condemn the killing.